Saturday, December 4, 2010

This is Hell/Rolo Tomassi/Comeback Kid/Architects, the HiFi, December 3 2010

The HiFi was surprisingly empty last night for such a high calibre international hardcore show, spanning bands from three countries. It may have been something to do with the price though, a paying $60+ for a hardcore show is a bit steep by the genre's standards, with even half of the bands repeatedly acknowledging the fact. Also, I think a lot of fans of these bands are under 18 and an all-ages show would have lead to a much bigger turnout.

First up where This is Hell, a hardcore punk band from New York. And boy, did they sound and look everything like the New York Hardcore bands I know and love. I couldn't help but think of Sick of It All, as I watched their shaved head, tattooed, muscle-bound, bandana clad guitar player shred while stamping across the stage. I enjoyed it, but no one else in the crowd seemed to, and the band looked very pissed off at the poor turn out. But that only seemed to fuel their set, playing half an hour of very loud hardcore.

The next band saw a very attractive female come out on stage in a slinky little black cocktail dress, pick up a microphone and then come out with an insanely good grindcore-style scream/growl. Probably like half of the crowd there, I was in love. The band was Rolo Tomassi, hailing from England, playing a very intense synthesiser driven mathcore. Most of the crowd didn't know what to do with it, but I loved it. It reminded me of seeing Genghis Tron a few months back in the same venue, but with a much more attractive lead singer and a much larger sound.

As Canada's Comeback Kid hit the stage, the crowd swelled to probably it's biggest size of the whole night. Still not large, but a crowd that finally found their feet and enjoyed the show. Comeback Kid themselves kept thanking the crowd for coming along, realising that the cost of the show was ridiculous.

The tore through a very quality set of hardcore punk, playing a great mix of songs, including a few off their brand new album Symptoms + Cures. But the highlight for me, was the second last song, Wake the Dead. They lead it in with a call and response from the crowd before I got the chance to tape this:



An excellent set from an excellent live hardcore band.

The headliners for the night were Architects, also hailing from the UK. Although the crowd numbers dropped off after Comeback Kid (including some of my friends), they managed to get an excellent response from the crowd with their fast and heavy music. I didn't know much about them going on, but I felt that their live show was just a little bit less heavy than their recordings, with a lot more singing than screaming. Still, they capped off a great night of bands, playing to a rather disappointing and lacklustre crowd. Good effort by the bands all around.

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